“For what was this done to thee?” she asked him, and he saw that he had succeeded in bringing shock even to the eyes of Morgaine.
“For murder, for brother-killing.” He had told this to none, had avoided men and shelters even of country folk. The words came with difficulty to his lips. “It was a fight he forced, lady, but I killed my brother—my half-brother—and he was Myya. So there are two clans with blood-debt against me, and I am no help to you. I am grateful for the shelter—I thank you: but it is no use to you to make claim against me. Only name me some reasonable service and I will do that for you in payment. You cannot stay here, you are cursed in every hold in Andur-Kursh, and no one that hears your name or sees you will refrain from
your life. Listen, for all that you are, you have been generous with me, and I am giving you good advice for it: the pass south of here leads through Aenor, and I am bound that way. I will somehow guide you through that land. I will bring you safely to the south of Aenor, where lands are warm, into Eriel, into the plains of Lun. They are savages that live there, but at least they have no bloodfeud with you and you can live there in safety. Listen to me and let me pay you with that thanks. That is the best that I can do for you, and I will do that honestly, grudging nothing.”
“I refuse to grant exception,” she said then, which was her right.
He swore, both foully and tearfully, and left her and went out and laid hands upon his horse’s halter. He had time to think then, of the holy oath he had already made as ilin, and that oath-breaking was no light thing for his honor and least of all for his soul. He laid hand against the bay’s rough cheek, and his head against its warm neck, and stayed there, shivering in the cold, but numb to it. Easy it would be if he could die there in the wind, robbed of warmth, to sink into the numbing snow and simply die, untouched by qujalin oaths.
New snow crunched beneath Morgaine’s boots. She came and stood beside him, waiting for him to decide which he would, to yield up his soul by oath-breaking, or to risk it by serving the likes of her. For a man who was lost in either case, the only thing left was life: and life was sure to be longer by running now than by staying with Morgaine Frosthair.
Then he thought of the deer, and already he felt a twitching at the back of his shoulders as if she sought his life. He would not be able to outrace that: other weapons, perhaps, but not the thing that had slain the deer and left no wound.
“It is lawful,” she said, “what I ask.”
“With you,” he objected, “that year is likely to be the last of my life. And after that, I would be a marked man in Andur-Kursh.”
“I will admit that is true. My own life is likely to be no longer. I have no pity to spare for thee.”
She held out her hand for his. He yielded it, and-she drew the ivory-hilted Honor blade from her belt and cut deeply, but not wide: the dark blood welled up slowly in the cold. She set her mouth to the wound, and then he did the same, the salt hot
taste of his own blood knotting his stomach in revulsion. Then she went inside, and brought ash to stop it with, smearing it with the clan-glyph of the Chya, writ in his blood and her hearth-ash across his hand, the ancient custom of Claiming.
Then he bowed to his forehead in the burning snow, and the ice numbed the fire in his hand and made it cease throbbing, she had certain responsibilities for him now: to see that he did not starve, neither he nor his horse, though certain of the hedge-lords were scant of that obligation, and kept the miserable ilinin they claimed lean and hungry and their horses in little better state when the ilinin were in hall.